Husband's overtime pay - what's a fair split?

[Debatingthings]

My husband has been working overtime lately. Mostly late evening call outs.

He works 5 days a week and is usually out of the house from 8am-6pm ish. I work 3 days a week and am usually out of the house from 8:30am to 5pm.

I do nursery pick ups and drop offs on those days. I do most of the work getting our toddler ready in the mornings all weekdays. I also look after her on my two days off and do the majority of cleaning, cooking, laundry, food shopping, admin, and DIY in the house. He does garden maintenance.

When he does these call outs, he often misses the bedtime and/or sleeps in late the next day.

I have a professional job but dropped down to 3 days to care for our child, which I love and value, but ultimately have made career and financial sacrifices for this, which he has not had to make.

Our standard take home pay is roughly similar but he does usually bring home some extra money by way of end-of-day overtime each month, so his pay cheque is higher.

These late night call outs are new.

Out money is generally split equally i.e. everything paid into joint account then we have the same amount of personal spends each month.

What is a fair split of this late night call out overtime money? He has suggested 70/30. I don't want to be grabby but I feel he can only earn this extra money because I facilitate it. I sort of feel it should be 50/50, but... AIBU?

YABU = 70/30 or less
YANBU = 50/50

We earn differently (I am the higher earner but DH still works full time), I do on call 1 week a month he does 2 Saturdays a month in another department at work covering urgent assessment. Our overtime payments are just considered part of our income. I earn about 8k extra a year from mine in not keeping it for myself. Most of my on call can be done from home but every now and then I have to go in at 2am to deal with a major incident I couldn't do that if DH wasn't at home with ds , similarly he couldn't do his without me.
Alternatively can you go back to full time and he won't have to do overtime? Maybe that's creating resentment.

Obviously equal, you are married.

We have a joint account and everything goes in there. But we each have a personal credit card and put all personal expenditures on there. Then we have a direct debit from the joint account to pay our cards in full each month. So completely fair but we also have privacy of our own expenditures… neither of us would dream of scrutinising each other’s credit card statements as we have similar financial values.

Surely all money is family money and that’s it. If my DH tried to pocket money for overtime, I’d be charging time and a half for childcare. It’s so grabby.

Everything into one joint account, wages go in, mortgage and bills go out. Then you set up a standing order each month out to your own personal accounts for personal spends. Adjust the standing order now and again if it’s too much or too little.

For us, we would keep it ourselves. We keep any extra bonuses etc. I can't imagine someone doing overtime then the other person saying 'oh but I looked after our child for an extra 2 hours so I deserve some'. Feels a bit wrong to me but I see I'm in the minority.

“These transactional relationships sound so joyless. I honestly don’t know how people put themselves through it.”

This. In our marriage everything is shared because we’re a team. This sort of thing sounds so petty.

Your posts are muddled , you start saying you work part time and had to take a hit, that your husband didn’t have to do that. Then you say actually it was your choice. So you didn’t have to do that?

for me, we should have equal spends, so we pay proportionally into a joint account then ensure we have the same amount left in our personal accounts for our own spends,

I think the point is that he was only able to earn the overtime money because of op doing all the parenting so that he could go out and work.

Spot on . I just couldn’t be doing with all the keeping score .

Yep us to. I couldn’t live with haggling over every penny.

I think the issue the OP has is that she doesn't get that opportunity, she works less and the only way her partner can do the overtime is to have someone doing the childcare.

To me though if this is an issue (and is as transactional as it sounds) she would be better off saying she wants to go back to work full time and then pay for a nanny where the cost can then be put into their shared costs.

Most people see it as wrong as many women sacrifice pay rises and work opportunities when they take on more child care roles. I’ve worked part time for 10 years now and my DH who I’ve supported to work full time now earns 3 times as much as me and we’re in the same industry. The gender pay gap is alive and well in my industry which makes it even worse.

We’re going to flip it soon so he works part time and I build my career again and try and increase my own salary. If you’re playing the long game, keeping a few hours of overtime seems petty and spiteful if the other person’s earnings have taken a massive hit as a result of looking after the children for a number of years.

If I were your husband, I would look upon your chosen 4 days at home with envy. Whilst looking after a child and home is hard work, it's not work work and you are at liberty to do as you have chosen with your time. Money wise, all into one account and share, unless there's a reason for moving money away into separate savings accounts. Maybe offer for your husband to have the extra days off during week and you go back full time with additional overtime on top.

Nope, I am with you.

We don’t even have a joint account - an absolute mortal sin in the eyes of Mumsnet but then this is second marriage for both of us, so it’s a bit different to first time around as there are other kids involved.

I always keep my bonus and always will! I have no idea what my DH spends his money on - as long as all our bills are paid, anything left is ours to do with as we wish.

This response made me sad

This is what family life is like now?

Is it a marriage or a business arrangement? Very strange.

I’m going against the grain here but I keep my own overtime money to myself. It not loads and sometimes I might chuck a bit of money towards a take away or our holiday savings, but we’ve always had it that any overtime is mine to do what I like with. I don’t do it as frequently as your DH though, maybe that would make a difference.

Hallelujah I'm with you!
I was earning literally a 1/3 of my partners wage but for bills etc we worked a fair split. He got a few k bonus and I didn't even think to question him keeping it. Usually any extra like that tends to go towards holidays though to be fair.

I just wonder if maybe you’re holding the purse string a little bit tight, and he may be kicking back? It’s just what you said about being fairly comfortable, and spending quite little in comparison to savings and investments. Could your husband be craving a bit more freedom with spending, so is trying to do that with the overtime? Could be worth a conversation.

This thread is wild to me.

OP chooses to reduce her working hours by 2 5ths to spend more time with child

Income has been split fairly

Now DH is doing a bit of OT to top up his money for something and op is looking a cut and wondering what % is fair

People are suggesting she charge him childcare, for her time in bed sleeping too

This is all nuts!

I've definitely done extra shifts from time to time to justify paying for something specific, I can't imagine DH saying nope 50% of that OT is mine so you need to do more shifts to pay for your thing

God, this is what family life comes down to now 😬

I suspect the DH us sorry he ever agreed to the OT!

👏

All money should be 50/50

He is able to do more overtime, as you step up and look after the children

Or go back to work full time, and jointly pay for childcare.

If you earn the same and your on less hours, that means you would earn more than him...would you get to keep that to yourself?

I agree with you 100%.

I think it’s grabby af to even think about taking a cut of something he’s put in the graft for.

I actually agree with him. Yes you are facilitating it so without you he would have to pay for childcare, but you aren't actually doing the work so without him there would be no extra money at all.